It doesn't matter if what you are using is exploitable or not. If a state agency is targeting you specifically, you are screwed no matter what. They will probably find a way to collect the information you want. However, using end-to-end encryption with well vetted tools will keep your communications out of these global dragnets the NSA and it's ilk have been running.

You're not going to stop them from hacking your computer if they want to get in, but frankly you're not important enough, but it is worthwhile to keep your data from being swept up incidentally.

My work provided me with one of these as their standard standing solution. It's not motorized, but it has pistons to assist raising/lowering that makes it relatively easy. Changing positions takes about 30s as I have to move my keyboard and mouse from the keyboard tray to the adjustable work surface.

The only cons are that it takes a bit of time to get set up correctly as you have to place a couple of stop screws to set the maximum height. It's also a little difficult to adjust the horizontal spacing on the monitor mounts (I have a 2-display setup). Other than that, it works great!

Secondly, it's only available on networks you choose to allow this on.

I don't have any choice. If I give my friend my WiFi password, and he happens to be running a Windows 10 phone, suddenly my WiFi password is shared with all of his contacts. So now every time someone is over my house and asks for the WiFi I'll have to ask them if they currently own, or ever intend to own a windows phone. And then, assuming they understand the question, I have to sound like a paranoid asshole and say "no" if they answer in the affirmative. My other option is to rename mySSID to end in _optout and update all of my devices because Microsoft chose to implement a ludicrous, criminally insecure, "feature"?

Third, yes, your wifi passwords are being backed up to make it easier when you migrate devices - Apple, Google and Microsoft all do this on your mobile devices. This isn't new!

Apple's encryption is end-to-end. They do not hold the encryption keys and thus can't share your passwords with anyone: Even if some brain dead middle manager had the idea to clone this feature, it would be impossible for them to implement without totally changing their security model.

While not drones per se, there are ground based weapons systems that are capable of automatically engaging human targets. Whether they are deployed in this configuration is probably something that the users aren't advertising.

Out of your two examples, Hulu is the only service that still shows commercials to their paying subscribers. Netflix doesn't (yet).

What other streaming services are there that will still show ads to paying subscribers? Because the only other ones that I am aware of (Crunchyroll, Funimation's streaming service, and as far as I am aware, Amazon) all stream ad-free to their paying subscribers.

I just bought a season of Archer from Amazon (I am also a Prime subscriber), and I was dismayed to find out that each episode is bracketed by 2-5 minutes of trailers for other FX shows.

This would really only affect languages like Java that mix interface declarations with their implementations.

Languages that normally separate them (like C, and C++) will not likely need to worry.

Lesson: Avoid Java

It's only been since Java 1.8 that you've been able to inline a default implementation along with an interface declaration. Before 1.8, the only legal members of interfaces were abstract method declarations and static final constants.

See the manual for instructions on mounting the WebDAV share with various clients. Note that Windows is kind of problematic for this out of the box and you may need to use a third party file system driver such as NetDrive.

But we do it for other products. We poison industrial ethanol so the government doesn't tax it at the recreational rate. We spike opioid analgesics with non-therapeuticly high levels of acetaminophen to discourage recreational use. If we're willing to poison things that are sold legitimately, why wouldn't we poison something that is illegal? I'm not saying it wouldn't work for other reasons you cited, but we've already stepped over the line as a society of intentionally poisoning things to discourage their use.

Traditional pilots don't "feel the impact" more, but it does cost a great deal more, and introduce a lot mroe risk, to operate an aircraft with them on board. You seem to prefer that, for some reason. Strange.

It's not that strange. More risk means there is a higher threshold for committing violence.

FDA has decided a lot of things, many of which turned out not to be true. According to the FDA, Walnuts are a drug (yes it is true).

No it's not true. The FDA forced a walnut distributor to remove some unsubstantiated health claims from the packaging of their products: http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/ucm202825.htm. People making false claims about the health benefits of their products (e.g. selling grain alcohol mixed with an emetic as cure-all) was the whole reason the FDA was created.

Walnuts are not classified as a drug, but if you claim they cure cancer without a good double blind study to back you up, you will be called on your bullshit. This is a good thing and is an example of a government agency exercising it's regulatory authority within the appropriate ambit. There are plenty of other real government conspiracies both covert and flagrant to worry about without inventing more.

Annoying Oracle can't be a bad thing. I can't believe they bundle it when Java is needed for so many enterprise apps - surely the reputational damage is worth more than the revenue from bundling the toolbar? It makes them look cheap and certainly not enterprise.

If you download the "server" JRE (actually it's a full JDK, I don't know why they label it that way), it comes as a simple tarball. It doesn't interact with the registry, doesn't install the browser plugin -- it's just full JDK distribution. I'm guessing they are locked into a multi-year co-marketing deal with Ask for the consumer distribution. I always just download the server version, unzip, and add C:\jdk1.x.y_z to my PATH and I'm done.